John Wilcox

Summary: I would NOT recommend going to Dr Wilcox at HRC for your fertility treatment, as I had a disappointing and demoralizing experience with him. Note: This review is solely for Dr John Wilcox and does not reflect the other doctors at the HRC Fertility clinic. Background: I had 3 unsuccessful rounds of IVF (2 that went through an egg retrieval and 1 that did not even make it that far). I waited a year to write this review because I wanted to be absolutely sure that the disappointing experience was valid and not marred from the failed results. I wanted to wait and compare the behavior with my other doctor to be absolutely sure that this wasn’t behavior that was common or considered normal. I can assure you that it is not. I ended up going to another clinic, and am now pregnant. I just wish I didn’t have to go through the painful journey with Dr Wilcox beforehand. I hope this feedback will help others avoid my mistake, and save themselves heartache and a huge financial loss. Problem #1: One size fits all approach The doctor’s approach is a one size fits all method. Throughout the 3 rounds of IVF, he did not bother changing the medication for any of those rounds. Even after 2 of the cycles resulted in identical failed outcomes that followed the same recipe, he chose to only slightly change the dosage on one of the medications. I also asked him about changing the medication, which he dismissed and chose to stick to his [continued unsuccessful] method. By the way, the 2nd round didn’t even make it to the egg retrieval stage. One example of the unchanging and failed recipe: Dr Wilcox had me start every cycle with 2 weeks on birth control. Come to find (per my new doctor at a different fertility clinic) that birth control can actually slow down the growth of follicles too much for those who are sensitive to birth control AND that the birth control method is actually for the benefit of the doctor not the patient. It allows the doctor to control the timing of a woman’s cycle, rather than follow the natural cycle. (Dr Wilcox never explained this to me, btw) Problem #2: Poor bedside manner Throughout the treatment, the doctor was dismissive of my questions and continued to use statistics to justify his dismissive attitude. (I.e., when I asked him why the medications were not changed after the first and second failed attempt, he told me that his approach works for the ‘majority’ of his clients and if it failed for me then that must mean statistically I do not have a good chance of getting pregnant anyways.) His stance was that since my results were not successful based on his [one size fits all] treatment, the odds of me getting pregnant were slim to none. He told me straight up that I had <1% of getting pregnant by the 2nd cycle. He also mentioned to me after my first round, that HRC’s policy was to only allow 3 rounds per person before they stop treatment. (They would only continue treatment if the person opts for a donor egg.) Problem #3: Understaffed The staff was friendly and helpful. However, it was apparent that they were understaffed. There were a few times where I was left in a waiting room (or left in the hallway) after an exam for awhile before a nurse came to meet with me. During one IVF round, the nurse did not order one of my medications in time and I actually ran out of it. When I let the staff know that I ran out and I needed to get a refill ASAP, Dr Wilcox emailed me and said that it was ok that I skip a few days because it doesn’t really make much of a difference. Nice to know that they prescribed me medication (that was quite expensive) that ‘didn’t do much’. Problem #4: Runs like a business The office is really nice and comfortable. The waiting lounge feels spa-like and I know they recently moved into a new space since I left. HRC looks like a very profitable business, and Dr Wilcox manages that business very well. Throughout my IVF experience with him, I felt like he was handling my fertility treatment very much like a business. With the one size fits all treatment, the policy of no more than 3 rounds, and immediate referral to egg donor after the first round, I felt like he was churning me through the fertility factory and trying to get me out as soon as possible so the next customer can get in line. In my final IVF round with HRC, he confirmed that I only had one follicle that was mature enough to retrieve. (Yes, only ONE) He told me to go ahead with the egg retrieval surgery anyways. For those of you who are not familiar with that procedure, the patient undergoes general anesthesia and the procedure is invasive. Dr Wilcox had me go through that procedure for ONE follicle, which has a very low chance of success. I didn’t realize how unethical it was for him to do that, until I went to the new clinic and the multiple doctors there said that they would never recommend a patient to go through a retrieval with only one follicle. This just further confirmed that he does not treat patients like human beings. Conclusion: If you are looking to get fertility treatment, please go to another doctor. You will not get the experience you need nor deserve with Dr Wilcox. Luckily for me, my insurance covered majority of my treatments so I was financially able to continue with another doctor and now I am pregnant. However, I know for a fact that if I didn’t have insurance, I would have spent my savings on this horrendous experience.

Go to another doctor. If you've already committed, then do A LOT of research on your own. I would ask about alternative medication (especially to the birth control pills they prescribe) and alternative hormone medication. There are hormone medications that are covered by insurance and ones that are not. Ask your insurance and TELL (don't ask) him that is what you need.

Round 1: I started with birth control pill for 7 days. Then they had me take [daily] 25ml of Omnitrope injections, 300 IU of Gonal injections for first couple of days, then increased dosage to 450 IU, and Clomid pills for about a week and a half. Gonal dosage increased because the follicles were not growing quickly enough. (The # of days of hormone treatment also differed slightly for each round depending on the follicle growth each time.) Dr Wilcox was waiting until the follicles reached an average of 20-23 mm. I used Pregnyl as the trigger shot 2 days before the egg retrieval. Results were one egg retrieved with failed fertilization even though they were monitoring 3 eggs. Round 2: Same birth control for 7 days. Then 25ml of Omnitrope injections, 450 IU of Gonal injections and Clomid pills for only 4 days because my follicles were growing unevenly so they stopped treatment mid-way. Result: No egg retrieval. Round 3: Same birth control for 7 days. Then 25ml of Omnitrope, 450 IU of Gonal for first 4 days then increased to 525 IU, and Clomid. Again, the follicle were not growing quickly enough. Pregnyl for trigger then retrieval. Doctor continued to try to hit the 20-23 mm follicle size. Results: Retrieved one egg (doctor knew there was only one egg). Egg degenerated a couple of days after retrieval.

Thankfully, my insurance covered most of the services. There were a few medications that my insurance did not cover, like Omnitrope and Pregnyl.

If you are looking for more time to talk, more emotional guidance and more hand holding he wouldn’t be the best doctor for that. But I wasn’t looking for that. I want someone experienced, educated and successful at his job. He is professional, polite, precise, efficient.

You have the whole HRC team to consult with. Each can offer different help and support. Don’t expect everything from your doctor. Use your time with the nurses if you need more support.

10 days of Injections 4-5 ultrasounds Retrieval Day It was very easy

23,000 for 1 harvest, 1 transfer, ICSI, genetic testing

We have t moved on to transfer yet. We are starting a 2nd harvest to be able to genetically test all together. We will then move on to a single transfer

Overall, Chris was a very practical doctor giving the straight facts of the situation. Very cordial while being very trustworthy. He provided us with the right information we needed to move forward with our first cycle. We look forward to see where our results will go as we move forward after the Covid quarantine.

Feel free to ask questions! He is very knowledgeable as well as his staff.

Our IVF process so far has been only the egg retrieval and embryo creation of our first cycle. The process consisted of several ultrasounds and blood tests. In terms of hormones, clomid, omnitrope, and gonal were used.

It was a generally oiled machine. A lot of it depended on time of day. If it was critical that a doctor needed to co duct the ultrasound, then they scheduled for mornings. Otherwise, it was scheduled at any part of the day with a nurse practitioner to assist. Kept the wait times rather low. However, there was more traffic in the mornings there.

So far, the costs for service and egg retrieval have been around $11,000 with the inclusion of our insurance.

Have not yet transferred embryos.

Still consulting with him. It was thorough and I feel comfortable thus far. He came highly recommended and I appreciated his patience with me. I explained my desires and expectations and he went in great detail about what I needed to do on my part to manifest the results I want.

Have your questions prepared and do prior research so that you’re more educated on the process.

I haven’t began cycles. I have only consulted with him.

We are still discussing with insurance

No comments. My next appointment is coming up.

I believe Dr. Wilcox is an exceptional, knowledgeable doctor with years of experience. He has a calm, supportive and reassuring demeanor, however, he is a bit too confident in his abilities and unwilling to change or adjust his protocol. We have had two failed transfers with pgs normal embryos and he only suggested one test (ERA) but does not believe in changing our protocol at all. He also does not do follow up appointments and after two failed transfers, I had to push our clinic to demand a meeting with Dr. Wilcox. I believe it is unconscionable that a doctor does not provide follow up care with failed treatments and that I had to demand follow up meetings.

I would not recommend HRC or Dr. Wilcox if you are seeking personalized, one-on-one care with a provider who has the time to respond to your concerns. However, if this is not a priority for you, then HRC and Dr. Wilcox are very capable and should hopefully get you success. They are not a good clinic for patients that have more difficult cases and need more specialized care.

I did one egg retrieval with Dr. Wilcox which yielded 34 eggs, of which 28 were mature. All 28 were fertilized with ICSI and we ended up with 14 blastocysts. We sent the 14 embryos to be PGS tested and 6 came back PGS normal. He gave us a protocol of menopur and follistim and Lupron trigger. For FET #1, we did delestrogen injections every 3 days and then progesterone suppositories and sublingual progesterone 3 times a day. This resulted in a negative beta test (implantation failure) with our best PGS embryo. FET #2 I took 10mg daily of prednisone, delestrogen injections every 3 days and progesterone suppositories twice a day and progesterone injections once a day. This also resulted in a negative beta test (implantation failure) with our second best PGS embryo. Dr. Wilcox suggested ERA to determine if the timing is accurate but does not recommend any further immune testing or testing for endometritis or endometriosis. With each transfer, my lining has been perfect (10mm a week before the transfer, trilaminar stripe), my hysteroscopy showed a great uterine cavity. Dr Wilcox believes it is just a matter of time until we get pregnant and does not suggest any other testing so we will be switching doctors.

We paid around $16,000 for egg retrieval, ICSI, and pgs testing on 14 embryos (including ultrasounds, blood tests, and one beta test and transfer). Our next FET cycle cost $3260 which includes a Kaiser discount. The medications were extra and varied in price.

N/A

Dr. Wilcox is straight to the point and gets amazing results. While we didn't have our hands held along the way, we always felt like we were in good hands under his direction. I wish we had a bit more interaction with him but have had amazing results to date. Of the 34 eggs retrieved, we had 11 come back healthy post PGS testing.

If you want someone to dry your tears or hold your hand along the way, I would recommend a different doctor. But you have the trust him, as he gets amazing results and his support staff is wonderful.

We started with IUI, as it is much cheaper and an easy process. He said to try IUI 4-5 times but we could move forward with IVF whenever we wanted. We had two failed IUI's with clomid and then switched to IVF. The injectables we used were Follistim, low dose HCG Pregnyl, Ganirelix Acetate and Doxycycline. I had an incredible response... 34 eggs retrieved, 30 were ICSIED by the sperm and 25 were normally fertilized. We had 16 get to the blastacyst stage and 11 were genetically normal after the PGS testing. We are waiting to do the first transfer, as we have some upcoming travel and Wilcox recommends to not fly until 6 weeks pregnant.

IVF: $9,600 ICSI: $1,700 PGS of 12 Embryos: $5,300 Medication: $3,455 Anesthesia: $600 Embryo Freezing: $800 Transfers: $3,800 + medication

Because I am still pretty young (30), Dr. Wilcox recommends single embryo transfer, which is what my husband and I prefer.

Dr. Wilcox was great. He listened to us and took notes. He listened to our concerns and answered all our questions. During out initial consultation he went into details about diagnosis options and different treatments. He explained different possible scenarios. He did not rush during out appointment. He gave us all his attention and focus. We felt very comfortable with Dr. Wilcox.

Do not be embarrassed to ask him any question or discuss your concerns with him.

I have not had treatment with Dr. Wilcox yet. We only did a consultations and lab work. When he received my husband's specimen results, he referred us with a urologist. He followed up with us after our appoint with the urologist and we are working on a treatment plan.

We have not had treatment yet but he did give me a quote on treatment.

Dr. Wilcox's strength is his very calm demeanor, which I equated to confidence. He was always cool and collected, and his tone of voice was very comforting. He answered every question I had (except with the last transfer) as if he had always known the answer. He never faltered in his responses, which made me feel at ease. Dr. Wilcox's weakness, as previously stated, is that he could be a bit more supportive. After each failed transfer, I never connected with him as far as the next steps. I always spoke to my IVF coordinator, who would speak on his behalf. After each failed transfer (I had 3), I would have liked to connect with him or even have him call me with the next steps. I think that adds the human factor; the idea that he's not just a busy doctor, but a human who actually cares about my progress. During the last ultrasound prior to my 3rd FET, I asked him a question and he gave me a single word response before leaving the room. I did not feel very supported/validated at that time. I would say that for the most part, though, Dr. Wilcox was professional and I was confident with my treatment plan. His protocol always worked for me because I responded well to medications. Everything looked picture perfect beforehand. He adjusted the treatment plan with each failed FET, and I had cervical dilations and an ERA to help diagnose possible issues with implantation at the cellular level. I am confident in his treatment plans for me for the future as well.

He may come off a little too calm, but that seems to be his personality and bedside manner. If you don't feel comfortable by that, I would go with another doctor. He was always consistently cool as a cucumber.

EGG RETRIEVAL IN JUNE 2017: Birth control pills started on 5/19/17-5/28/17. 5/30/17 appt for ultrasound/labs. 6/2/17: Started Gonal F 300 units, Menopur 75 units, Omnitrope 0.25 mL every night. 6/6/17: Appt for ultrasound/labs. Based on lab results, I continued all medications as ordered and increased Menopur to 100 units. 6/8/17: appt for labs/ultrasound. Follicles growing well, responding to meds well. 6/10/17: appt for labs/ultrasound. 6/11/17: trigger injection. 6/13/17: egg retrieval under general anesthesia. 19 eggs retrieved, 13 eggs mature, 11 fertilized via ICSI, 10 blasts, 5 PGS normal embryos (3 boys/2 girls). FET #1 IN AUGUST 2017: 7/1//17:take last birth control pill. 7/12/17 appt for ultrasound, labs for BHCG and estrogen. 7/16/17: Start Delestrogen 0.1mL every 3 days for 2 doses. Start prenatal vitamins, dha, and folic acid daily. 7/22/17: increase Delestrogen to 0.2mL every 3 days. 7/26/17: Appt for ultrasound/labs for progesterone and estrogen. 7/30/17: Started Endometrin 100mg vaginal suppository 3 times daily and Progesterone 200mg lozenges sublingually 3 times daily. 8/4/17: FET with 1 male PGS embryo. Dr. Wilcox had difficulty accessing my uterus because my cervix is anatomically shaped differently. 8/16/17: Beta HCG negative. FET#2 IN OCTOBER 2017: 9/22/17: Dr. Wilcox completed a cervical dilation and endometrial scratch, because he had difficulty accessing my uterus during FET #1. 9/27/17 started Delestrogen 0.1 mL every 3 days for a total of 2 doses. Started prenatal vitamins, DHA, and folic acid daily. 10/3/17: increased Delestrogen to 0.2mL every 3 days. 10/6/17 appt for ultrasound/labs. 10/11/17 started Endometrin 100mg vaginal suppository 3 times daily and Progesterone 200mg lozenge sublingually 3 times daily. 10/16/17: FET with 2 PGS normal embryos (1 male/1 female) under general anesthesia. 10/27/17: Beta negative. ERA CYCLE IN DECEMBER 2017: 11/2/17 started birth control. 11/11/17 last birth control pill today. 11/15/17 appt for ultrasound/labs. 11/16/17 started Delestrogen 0.1mL every 3 days for a total of 2 doses. 11/22/17 Increased Delestrogen to 0.2mL every 3 days. 11/27/17 appt for labs/ultrasounds. 11/30/17 started Progesterone 1mL IM daily and Endometrin 100mg vaginal suppository 3 times daily. 12/5/17: ERA biopsy. Started back on birth control pills. FET#3 IN JANUARY 2018: 12/22/17 cervical dilation under general anesthesia. 12/28/17 took last birth control pill today. 1/2/18 appt for labs, ultrasound, and endometrial scratch. Started Delestrogen 0.1mL every 3 days for a total of 2 doses, and started prenatal vitamins, folic acid, and dha. 1/8/18 increased Delestrogen to 0.2mL every 3 days. 1/12/18 appt for labs and ultrasound. Dr. Wilcox saw what could have been hydrosalpinx on right side fallopian tube. 1/16/18 started Progesterone 1mL IM daily at 9am, and Endometrin 100mg vaginal suppository 3 times daily. 1/22/18 FET #3 with 1 PGS male embryo under general anesthesia. 2/2/18 Beta negative. CURRENT PLAN OF CARE: referred back to OB for possible laparoscopy of right side pelvic area, or placement of Essure on right side fallopian tube.

The cost for an IVF cycle (egg retrieval, 1st FET, PGS testing): $16,565. If I opted for no PGS testing, it would have been $12,110. Each FET $3150. General anesthesia $1500. Endometrial scratch $300. Cervical dilation $1100. ERA test $870. Biopsy $260.

My doctor felt that I would be successful with a singleton transfer, but ultimately left it up to me. He was willing to transfer 2 PGS embryos, though it was not his recommendation.

He has no bedside manners, he shows no compassion for his patients. The first consult is great but once you lock in the payment everything changes. I hardly saw him during my cycle and my follow up appt after failed cycle was only 5 minutes. He never explained to me about other alternatives.

To please not go based on yelp reviews. Dr. Wilcox treats many surrogates and that's a completely different scenario as surrogates never pay out of pocket. It's different when you are an actual infertility patient and you're only seen as a check.

Apparently he doesn't do fresh transfers, I was under gonal and menapour during stims. I had to and extra 5 days of stims and it was pointless and doing extra days can mess up the quality of the eggs.

I paid approximately $25,000 not including extra meds for pushing my egg retrieval and other basic blood tests needed in order to start cycle.

I didn't get to transfer.

Dr. Wilcox is very capable and confident and has an impressive track record. Everything he told me to expect has happened during treatment (ie number of follicles to expect, predicted date of egg retrieval, etc). I trust that he will always prescribe the right protocol for me. However, I do wish he had more time to spend with his patients. Aside from our initial consultation, each appointment has lasted no more than 10 min and then he is rushing off to the next patient. I know this doesn’t compromise the level of care I’m receiving. Whether it results in a BFP for us, we will see in a few weeks once we transfer.

Have a list of questions that you want to ask ready to go at each appt.

Birth control pills for 18 days Ultrasound/bloodwork on CD2 Begin injections on CD3 Follistim 225 + Menopur 75 from CD3-6 Follistim 225 + Menopur 150 from CD7-9 Add in Ganirelix on CD8-9 Trigger with Lupron + HCG on CD10 Egg retrieval on morning of CD12

About $3K per IUI including injectable meds About $23K for IVF cycle including meds, ICSI, and PGS testing

N/A - currently awaiting number of day 5 blasts

Dr. Wilcox was very nice and easy to talk with. He answered questions quickly, and never made me feel like a burden. This is a confusing process and he made sure that both my wife, and I, felt comfortable with moving forward.

He's busy because he's good at his job. If you want communication from him, be willing to communicate yourself as well. Don't sit back and wait for answers, but pursue them.

I used/use birthn control pills starting the 2nd day of my menstrual cycle, for 10 days. Then, I used delestrogen every 3 days (0.1ml the first two doses and .2ml for all the others), endometrin inserts every morning and evening (7 days prior), progesterone shots every morning at 6am (7 days prior). I also started the medrol dose pack the morning of the transfer.

In total, I have spent around $35k, and this is after he gave me a discount

Spent maybe 30 seconds assessing our case and deciding what to adjust, just kept pumping my wife with more and more meds and the results got worse and worse so he blamed us and tried to get us to use donor eggs (he is part owner of the egg donor agency)- we moved to another doctor afterward and got many blastocysts with our own eggs.

Go somewhere else

Basically had us do every thing on the checklist, icsi (which was completely unnecessary), assisted hatching, genetic testing, etc. used massive amounts of follistim and kept increasing dosage resulting in OHSS

~20k per cycle

Dr. Wilcox is very clear with what he thinks. If you ask for advice, he does not hesitate in giving you his opinion. He's very confident in what he does, and in our experience it's because he knows exactly what he's doing.

Trust him. He's spot on.

Dr. Wilcox looked at our failed cycle at a different clinic and was able to identify where they'd gone wrong. He adjusted my dosages, and also prescribed a growth hormone to help my eggs mature properly. I also received methyl prednisone after transfer to protect my embryos.

Unsure

Dr. Wilcox was very strong in his recommendation to transfer only one embryo. Our embryos were pre-genetically tested, I am under the age of 35, and he thought there was a strong chance for pregnancy. He strongly advised transferring more than one embryo, as he thought it would result in multiples. He wanted to protect me, and the babies, therefore he strongly recommended we transfer a singleton.

Dr Wilcox seems really good at what he does. We are MFI with seemingly no issues on my end so our treatment was pretty straightforward. A coworker also goes to the same practice but saw a different doctor and her protocol didn't produce quality eggs (I recognize there are many factors that contribute to this). The difference I noticed in our treatment was that Wilcox had me on ubiquinol whereas her doctor didn't even mention it. What concerned me a little with Dr Wilcox is his willingness to put in two embryos. We are non-PGS tested and only want to transfer one. I thought standard of care is to transfer one embryo and most people have to make a good case to their doctor to transfer two.

Don't be shy and ask questions. Doctors won't offer up information without being prompted.

300 iu of Follistim (all 9 days) 75 iu of Menopur (first 4 days) 150 iu of Menopur (last 5 days) Ganirelix (last 5 days) Lupron + HCG trigger 36 hours before retrieval (due to OHSS risk) Lupron 24 hours before retrieval (due to OHSS risk)

We are insurance patients so our insurance covers 50%. IVF fresh transfer cycle with ICSI, assisted hatching, embryo freezing, & surgery center fees was $7,080. FET is $2,100.

For non-PGS tested embryos, Wilcox prefers to transfer two.

When IVF #1 didn’t work, he said it was probably my uterus contracting. IVF #2 was done under general anesthesia and it resulted in a healthy pregnancy. He suggested a gestational carrier, but he listened to me about wanting to try to carry my own child. We both agreed that if IVF # 2 didn’t work we would try a GC.

Talk to him upfront and tell him what kind of information you want to know. One size doesn’t fit all patients. Some people want everything looks great and some people want to know exact and detailed information. I was the latter and this was relayed to everyone working on my case.

IVF #1 - down reg protocol with Human growth hormone. ICSI and freeze all. PGS testing FET # 1 - estrogen shots and progesterone - one embryo transfer IVF #2 - same as one FET # 2 - same as one, but transfer was done under general anesthesia. FET

Two cycles of IVF -$18k PGS testing - one cycle (free part of a study) second cycle $5k FET #2 general anesthesia $500

I have a unicornuate uterus so single embryo transfer was my only option.

He is very smart, great bedside manner. Only issue is clinic is very busy so he doesn't have that much time for you so you won't see him for all ultrasounds. I saw a physicians assistant on my initial appointments for my frozen cycle.

Make a list of questions and ask him when you see him because he won't be there at every appointment.

We did a polypectomy before my first transfer and a hysteroscopy before the frozen one to make sure my uterus was "clean." Not sure if it was a factor but both transfers were successful.

It was very expensive.

We did multiple embryos each time and both were successful. On the frozen cycle, one embryo split into 2.

Extremely competent. He was very honest at our initial meeting and said that, given our past experiences, he didn't know whether IVF would work for us. He said he would not advise trying multiple times but would try once and see how things went. We were successful on our first try with Dr. Wilcox and had three genetically-normal embryos. We were delighted, as our first attempt at IVF, in Portland, OR, had resulted in very low-quality embryos and no transfer.

Trust his advice. There is no need to second-guess his treatment plan--he is up on all the latest research and cares very much about the success of his patients.

We used genetic testing, which was very helpful in our case. Also used human growth hormone.

It was out-of-pocket for us. They had packages (2 IVFs for a certain price, etc.), but the billing person actually suggested that we just pay for 1, and it turns out that's all we needed.

We had three genetically normal embryos and were given the option of transferring one or two. He told us that two would very likely result in twins, and after a long discussion, we decided to transfer one and freeze two. We are very happy with this decision. I had an incredibly healthy and easy pregnancy and delivery.

He was knowledgeable, concerned, compassionate. He made himself available for consults and seemed to care about helping us have a child. He is one of the smartest doctors out there and knows what is going on in the world of fertility .

Don't give up.

HE suggested we do an EFT test which came back with "no mag" and therefore he suggested we use a surrogate. We also tested my husband's sperm (which other REs said was fine because he already had a son) and he had a vericoceles and needed surgery. He looked where other doctors did not.

I don't recall.

My husband and I both loved him. We felt like he was competent and we were in good hands. He somehow managed to alleviate away any stigma or anxiety or fear we had about the whole process.

Chose a donor that looks like you. It makes everything easier for you kids, because there won't be as many awkward questions. :)

I believe my IVF was $14,000, donor eggs $10,000 and meds about $5,000